Assistant Dean for Educational Programs

Faculty of Computing and Information Science

Cornell University

wofford AT cs.cornell.edu

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Education (Reading/Writing/Literacy)

Dissertation: Adult Students Imagining Civil Capital: College Writing, Capitalism, and the Common Good

M.A., Washington University in St. Louis, English Literature

Current Projects

BPC-DP: Worlds for Information Technology and Science (WITS). NSF Award # 0624418. 01/01/2007-12/31/2010

WITS will broaden the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in computing through the use of service learning to encourage them to enter computing fields. Service learning has been shown to appeal to higher percentages of women and minorities by providing contextualized learning and community building that enhances self confidence. The proposed project includes the development of a new 4-credit course. The course, Computing in Context, will be listed through and sponsored by Cornell's Faculty of Computing and Information Science (CIS). CIS is a cross-cutting, college-level entity supporting both interdisciplinary academic fields of study and concentrated degree programs. The WITS project will also support the creation of CYCentr/CYFair, an associated service-outreach program in which undergraduates enrolled in Computing in Context serve as mentors to middle school students. CYCentr will build on the success of CTC's SciCentr/SciFair outreach program, which uses the medium of online virtual worlds to attract and retain middle school students in education. CYFair will focus on computing and information science and building foundation computing skills at the middle school level. To ensure scalability and adaptability of the program model, the approach will be tested at three geographically dispersed institutions: Pennsylvania State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the San Diego Supercomputing Center. These trial sites will be engaged from the beginning in program development, and they have fully committed to running adapted projects at their home institutions. 

Real Place, Virtual Space

As a group of 9- and 10-year old students are introduced to the new computer lab in their apartment complex’s community room, we describe our experiences learning about the Internet, blogs, and virtual world technologies. Real Place, Virtual Space is a blog posted through Expert Voices, a blog archive authored by researchers and teachers across the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) network.

Cornell CS Island in Second Life

CS undergraduate students have the chance to script, build, and design in a new Second Life sim sponsored by the Cornell Computer Science Department. Inworld reporting will monitor island development and student interactions, as well as report on scripting innovations inworld. Island launched August, 2007.

Conference Presentations

(July, 2007) Behind the chat: Evaluating learning in virtual worlds. Worlds for Information Science and Technology (WITS) NSF Workshop presentation. Ithaca, NY.

(February, 2007) "Are there boundaries in this virtual world?: Technology, Education, and Play." Presented at the 28th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. Philadelphia, PA.

(February, 2005) "Literacies in the Lifeworld: Adult Students Imagining Civil Capital." Presented at the 26th Annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. Philadelphia, PA.

(March, 2003) "Adult Students’ Response to a Poem about Race." Spencer Urban Education Research Forum. Philadelphia, PA.

Courses Taught

Introduction to Poetry; Contemporary Literature; Eighteenth Century British Literature; Creative Writing; Grant Writing; Women Writers; Latin American Literature in Translation; Learning Across the Disciplines; Composition 101; Composition 102; Twentieth Century Literature: Realism

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope

White Teeth - Zadie Smith

On Beauty - Zadie Smith

The Pick Up - Nadine Gordimer

Convergence Culture - Henry Jenkins

Unlocking the Clubhouse - Margolis & Fisher

Tune In, Log On - Nancy Baym

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- J.K. Rowling